


wake up all the skeletons

by tattedmariposa



Category: Persona 4, Persona Series
Genre: (don't worry they have each other so it's not so bad in the end), Angst, Bittersweet, Blood, Early Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Injuries, and learning how to deal with what life throws at them, and trying to be better, teenagers having feelings (and slightly unhealthy coping mechanisms)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25946539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tattedmariposa/pseuds/tattedmariposa
Summary: Yu has an awful night. Yosuke comes over, and things get worse, then (slowly) better.
Relationships: Hanamura Yosuke/Narukami Yu, Hanamura Yosuke/Seta Souji
Comments: 13
Kudos: 157





	wake up all the skeletons

It was about a quarter to eleven when Yu heard the door.

“Hey, partner.” Yosuke brushed past Yu in the entryway, along with an ice-cold blast of January wind. Yu watched him shiver in the harsh light of the entryway as he shrugged off his heavy coat, with a flash of a bright smile that didn't fit with the miserable weather. “Damn, it's freezing out there tonight. Sorry it's so late, I was--”

“I told you to text me instead of knocking,” Yu interrupted, frowning. “Nanako's sleeping.”

“Oh _shit_. Sorry, I wasn't--” Yosuke tripped over his own words, wide-eyed and wincing and voice lowered to a hush. “I was waiting for my parents to go to bed, and Ted was being a total-- you don't think I woke her, do you?” He peered nervously around the corner, and back to Yu – then tilted his head, expression shifting to quizzical. “Uh, dude? What's with the gloves?”

Yu looked down at his hands, cased in yellow rubber.

“I was just scrubbing the kitchen sink.”

“Now?” Coat hung and shoes off, Yosuke stepped closer, only to hover like he was hesitating. “I thought we'd--”

He paused, leaned in a bit, touched cold fingers to Yu's shoulder, only to stop yet again – and at last darted in with a quick kiss, his thin lips chilly on Yu's cheek.

“I thought we would hang out. Or... y'know. Whatever.”

Yu almost brought a hand to his tingling face, before remembering his gloves. He felt unreasonably awkward, standing uselessly in the entryway, with a draft from under the door making his feet cold, with Yosuke looking at him expectantly.

He wanted to relax under Yosuke's casual touch. But when he closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath through his nose, all he could think of was the smell of kitchen cleaner lingering on his hands and apron.

“Yeah, I... Let me just. Finish up in the kitchen first.”

He put his head down, tried not to look at Yosuke as he pulled away, and shuffled back to the relative comfort of a scrub brush and a halfway-clean sink.

“Maaaaaaan. It's sparkling in here.” Yosuke, who had followed close behind, rocked on his heels, turning this way and that, taking in all of Yu's hard work – the tidy table, the clean stove, the spotless floors and countertop. “I'm a little afraid I'll mess everything up if I move around,” he added with a laugh, only to trail off uneasily when Yu didn't respond or join in.

Yu simply kept scrubbing, concentrating on a particularly stubborn bit of dried vegetable matter clinging to the rim of the sink.

“You won't get mad if I touch anything, will you?”

“Only if you're a food stain,” he replied flatly, and Yosuke laughed again, probably mistaking it for Yu's dry sense of humor.

“Soooo. Uh.” One of the chairs that Yu had neatly tucked under the kitchen table earlier scraped across the tile floor in a screech. “How long have you been working?”

“I don't know.” Three hours, give or take. “A while.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess you must've, to get things this clean.”

The area around the drain was covered in a ring of gritty brown film. Several times now Yu had politely asked Dojima-san to rinse the sink with a little water whenever he dumped out old coffee, but it seemed like his simple request always went in one ear and out the other.

“I mean. At least it looks a hell of a lot better than it did after Ted left, haha...”

He could hear Yosuke drumming his fingers in a quick, agitated beat on the back of the kitchen chair. Yosuke tended to do that, Yu had long since noticed, out of habit, when he was bored or stressed or nervous. Yu was so used to it by that point that usually, he hardly even noticed.

He wasn't sure why, then, he found himself wishing for silence. It wasn't like he didn't want Yosuke there.

Or, well.

He _had_ wanted him there. Earlier, after his uncle had been called into work. Before--

“When did you start all of this? After dinner?”

Yu frowned again, this time at his own dull, filmy reflection in the sink. Nine times out of ten, he appreciated Yosuke's persistence. Even admired it. But right then it left him with the same sour feeling, like salt prickling at his raw nerves.

“I haven't eaten yet.”

“What, really? Dude, it's eleven o'clock.”

The grime around the drain was taking forever. As much as Yu loved his uncle, he could strangle the man sometimes.

“Maybe you should take a food break.”

“I'll be all right.” He hadn't been very hungry anyway, but he didn't feel like hearing Yosuke pick that apart too. “I'll throw something together when I'm done here.”

A long pause passed by before Yosuke said, finally, “Right.” And then, with an audible hint of spite, “I know. When you're done with _the sink_.”

Yu sighed deeply through his nose again, though it came out more like an irritated huff. He forced his lips firmly together, gripped the brush in his hand a little tighter, pressed down a little harder.

It wasn't fair of him, he knew. He should've just called Yosuke back earlier, told him not to come over – but he hadn't, and now there was likely no way to get out of it without making things worse.

Well. At least the coffee stains were finally coming along.

In the meantime, Yosuke was still tapping away – a bit slower, but also louder. Yu wondered for a split second if Yosuke was doing it on purpose, because he'd somehow realized it was annoying, and almost as fast felt stupid for thinking it.

“Is it at least all right if I get myself something to drink?”

Yu didn't look up. “Go for it.”

He heard Yosuke move somewhere to his left, along with muffled clinks behind a cabinet door. “You want one too?”

“I'm fine.”

Yosuke stopped for a moment, empty glass in hand, slouching against the perfectly clean edge of the counter.

“Are you?”

The scouring brush was the only sound between them for several beats too long, in a steady, harsh rhythm against the metal of the sink.

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“I don't know, but you're being all-- you're being--” Yosuke broke off in a frustrated sigh, apparently unable to articulate just how awful Yu was right then, and Yu again found himself pressing his mouth into a tight line. “Maybe you need to eat something? I could--”

“I said, I'll make myself something when I'm done.”

Scrape, scrape.

“Partner, I'm just trying to help, here.”

“I'm _fine_ , Yosuke.”

“I wouldn't even mind, I--”

“What are you now, my mother?” Yu whipped around, dropping the brush in an abrupt clamor. He was raising his voice too, defeating the whole purpose of scolding Yosuke for the same thing earlier – Yosuke, who was now standing up perfectly straight with shoulders angled back, who was glaring at him in more or less equal parts defiance and hurt. Turning back to the sink, he said in something closer to his usual tone, far calmer than he felt, “I can feed myself.”

It wasn't like he'd hadn't been doing exactly that for years now.

“What the hell is _with_ you tonight?” Yosuke all but spat at him. Yu had picked up the brush again, but otherwise he stood still –- unable to put his hands back to work, unable to look Yosuke in the eyes. “You invite me over here, practically ignore me for the-- the fucking _dirty sink_ , and then you act like a complete asshole over-- what, me trying to be nice to you? What did I do?”

“Nothing,” Yu said quietly, and it might've been the first completely honest thing he'd said all night.

The clock in the living room ticked away, distantly, the only sound between them. Some of the cleaner at the edges of the sink was starting to turn back into dry powder.

“Maybe I should just go home.”

He could see Yosuke's crossed arms, his hard-set face turned off to the side, in his peripheral vision. The words were on the tip of his tongue.

( _Maybe you should._ )

Tense seconds passed by. The words wilted where they were held. Yu wasn't sure he trusted himself to speak.

After what felt like too long, he heard Yosuke's glass clink angrily against the counter, like the chime of a subway announcing departure. But instead of grabbing his things and heading for the door, Yosuke stalked to the living room and flopped on the couch, a lot more loudly than he needed to.

Yu's immediate reaction was a kneejerk, bitter disappointment. He knew it was terrible of him, but he found himself imagining the front door slamming, Yosuke taking off, the entire situation resolving itself without him having to do anything, for a change –- and for a few fleeting moments both that vicious thought, and the raw anger in his chest, felt so very satisfying.

The sink, much like everything else in the kitchen, was awfully clean by then, really. No more old dried food, no more obvious streaks or stains. In the wake of his outburst, Yu felt weary of pretending that it was important. He pushed the faucet on, let the water wash in streams over the brush, scooped it over the sink's four metal sides to clear away any residual cleaning powder.

Even after the water began to run clean, he stood there, with nothing to do but watch the water ebb over chrome and replay everything over in his mind.

And god, it was so embarrassing, what he'd said. So painfully transparent. His face burned warm, despite the cold water dripping from his gloved hands. But as much as he would've liked to keep avoiding the mess he'd dragged Yosuke into (and what was he even going to do now? What could he say?) he knew that he couldn't stand there forever. He stopped the faucet, pulled off the gloves, moved to lay them aside--

His forearm struck something on the counter. A split second later, Yosuke's abandoned glass was lying in pieces all over the floor.

“Yu?”

At least it was the kind of break that left only several large chunks, rather than shattering into a billion tiny shards.

“Are you all right?”

“I just broke a glass,” Yu managed, slowly, after a moment. He hadn't been expecting Yosuke to speak to him, let alone the open concern in his voice, and something about it stung him a lot more than the ruined glass. “I'm-- Yeah. It's all right.”

It wasn't untrue that time, at least not in the sense that Yosuke had just meant it. But something about simply saying it again, after allowing everything from before to sink in, left Yu with a strange disquiet.

He was still thinking about it (and not his bare hands, or the broom and dustpan that he'd used only a short while ago) when he bent over, and picked up a few of the largest pieces.

He didn't feel the sting of the razor-sharp edges until he was almost to the wastebin. He hissed at the sudden pain and let go, so fast that the pieces he was carrying barely made it into the trash. The two cuts (one on the index finger, one on the pad of his thumb) were so clean that it took another few seconds, after he turned his hand over, for the blood to show.

Then there was a good deal of it, all too fast. Yu cursed under his breath, more than a little annoyed with himself for being careless, and quickly strode back to the sink – forgot about the rest of the broken glass, yelped at the stabbing in the sole of his left foot, grasped at the counter as he hopped on the opposite leg--

That was when he saw Yosuke, seemingly stopped in his tracks at the kitchen's edge, gaping at the disaster lain out before him.

“Holy _shit_ , dude.”

Yu sort of just froze, one hand gripping the counter and the other held out like he didn't know what to do with it. Blood was running down to his wrist, pale red fingerprints were staining the once-spotless edge of the sink. He could feel a damp warmth spreading on the bottom of his sock.

But worse still (even worse than Yosuke's bewildered gawking) was the all-too-nearby creak of a door, the telltale patter of quick little footsteps, and a familiar voice that was at once both tiny and loud.

“Big bro! Big bro, I heard a noise, what's--”

“Nanako-chan!”

Before Yu could even begin to say _stay there, don't come in the kitchen_ , Yosuke was there to intercept, scooping Nanako off the ground in a quick and very convenient hug. The bunny plush that Yu had tucked her into bed with just an hour ago flopped in her arms as she squeaked in surprise and Yosuke spun her about.

“Yosuke-nii!”

“Hey there, little lady!” Yosuke, not letting her down, fixed her with a blinding smile, and Yu let out a silent sigh of relief that he didn't realize had caught in his chest. "What are you doing up so late?"

“I heard a noise,” she repeated, craning her head past Yosuke's shoulder. “Big bro! Are you okay?”

“Yes, I'm okay,” Yu lied through his teeth with a smile of his own, because this time, stretching the truth was an obvious necessity. “I just broke a glass, see?”

“Oh.” And then, as she swiped at one sleepy eye with her small fist, “Did you get hurt?”

“Your big bro's just fine, Nanako-chan,” Yosuke reassured her, in the same sort of indulgent tone he reserved for small children, grumpy customers, and (sometimes) Teddie. “He got a little hurt, but I'm going to fix him up, good as new! So you have to promise not to worry, okay?” He readjusted her slightly on his hip, still beaming down at her, and she gave a small smile back.

“Okay. I promise.”

In the midst of Yosuke's timely distraction, Yu had at least managed to surreptitiously grab a hand towel for his injured fingers, but he was still standing on one foot and leaning heavily against the counter while (presumably, as it wasn't like he could exactly look right then) bleeding all over himself. Something else had to give.

“You should go back to bed, Nanako,” Yu tried, hoping with a slightly desperate edge that she was tired enough not to put up a fight about it. "It's very late."

Thankfully, she merely nodded and yawned, and Yu was sure he noticed Yosuke's shoulders relax a bit too. But upon opening her eyes again, she seemed to have one more thing on her mind.

“Do you need a bandage, big bro?”

“Oh, it's all right.” Yu managed to only hesitate for a moment before adding, “Yosuke'll help me get one.”

She cupped one hand around her mouth, waiting expectantly in the universal gesture for _I-have-a-secret-to-tell_ , and Yosuke obligingly tilted his head down.

“He likes the ones with the kitties on them,” she told him, in a whisper worthy of a grand stage performance. Yu, ever the perfect big brother, pretended not to hear – even though he was pretty sure his ears were turning the same color as Nanako's pink-striped pajamas.

“Does he, now?” Yosuke laughed, his eyes dancing as he glanced from her, to Yu, and back again. “I'll definitely remember that, Nanako-chan. You're such a good helper.”

“Really?”

“Of course!”

Nanako gave Yosuke another happy little smile... and then yawned again, practically right in his face. To Yosuke's credit, he didn't even flinch.

“Now let's get you back to bed, 'kay?”

She gave another sleepy nod to Yosuke and a goodnight wave to Yu, and with that, Yosuke turned down the hall toward her bedroom.

Yu stood still for another few moments – partly to make sure the coast was really clear before he attempted to move, and partly because he was still attempting to process everything that had just happened.

It wasn't helping that he could still hear Nanako and Yosuke after they turned the corner.

"What's your bunny's name?"

"Mako."

"Ah, she's a very pretty bunny! I like her purple ribbon."

"Mako-kun's a _boy_ , Yosuke-nii."

It didn't take very long for Yosuke to come back. By then, Yu had at least hobbled to the kitchen table, sitting at the same chair Yosuke had taken earlier.

“She's all tucked in. I don't think she'll get up again; she seemed pretty tired.”

“Right,” Yu answered, glancing over as Yosuke pulled out the chair next to him. “That's good.”

Without Nanako's mitigating presence, everything between him and Yosuke shifted right back to full-on awkward. Ten minutes ago, Yu had all but needled Yosuke into leaving him alone. Now (and with absolutely none of that resolved in the least, no less) he was trying to figure out how you went about thanking someone for something you emphatically did not deserve.

“Thank you.” Yu made himself say it out loud anyway, if only because it was the most obvious place to start and he had no better ideas. “For taking care of that. I, um. Didn't really want her to see this.”

Yosuke just kind of snorted at him, like it was obvious –- and, well, Yu supposed he was right about that.

“Yeah, I figured.”

There was a short pause then, as though maybe Yosuke was waiting to see if Yu would say anything else first. When he didn't, Yosuke turned slightly away, one hand self-consciously brushing at the back of his neck. And Yu simply watched him, cautiously, from the corner of his eye.

“It's no problem, dude. You know I'd do anything for Nanako-chan.”

Yu did know, too well. And that alone left him with a fresh wave of guilt coating the inside of his chest.

“Yeah,” he said after far too long, choosing to look at his hands, the floor, the remains of the broken glass – anywhere but at Yosuke, before admitting, “I know.”

With neither of them saying much, Yu couldn't help but let the chaos he'd caused settle in. Besides the shattered glass, and the smears on the sink and counter, and the stains on the towel in his hands, walking from the counter to the table had left little dots of blood all over the tile too. He quietly seethed, just looking at all of it, just having to think about it – a whole nights' worth of cleaning, completely undone in the span of a few humiliating minutes.

“So, uh. How bad's your foot, anyways?”

That was all the warning he got before Yosuke bent forward and hauled it up by the ankle. Yu clenched his hands on reflex at the sudden sting – which was a terrible idea, as his sliced-up fingertips screamed back at him.

He didn't say anything though. Yosuke didn't for a moment either, tilting his head to inspect the damage.

“I think your sock's probably a goner,” Yosuke informed him, right before he peeled it off. It fell to a sad little heap on the floor.

“Probably,” Yu said, finding his voice.

“It bled a lot, huh.”

“Yeah, kind of.”

“It's not anymore, though. I think.”

Another pause. Yosuke's gaze flickered from Yu's heel, to his hands, to the trail of stains on the floor, and back again.

“Man. You really did a number on yourself.”

Yu thought he hardly needed to be told that, but with the way Yosuke was grimacing in sympathy, let alone doing everything else, he couldn't be bothered to mind too much. Letting Yosuke look at his injuries was easy and familiar, even a little comforting -- something they had done for each other countless times. And if nothing else, it was a worthy distraction from everything else about how the night had gone.

“Now for the bad news,” Yosuke told him in obvious mock-gravity, a barely-restrained smile belying his words.

“Bad news?” Yu echoed.

“Yeah. I think--” Yosuke paused, taking a deep, dramatic breath. “--it might be too big for a kitty bandage.”

It took a few seconds, but Yu laughed, despite himself.

“I'll live,” he said, trying and failing not to smile back.

For the first time all night, he felt like maybe everything would be okay, after all.

“Well, 'big bro,' I did promise Nanako-chan I'd patch you up. Think you can make it upstairs?”

* * *

Half the contents of Yu's well-worn emergency satchel ended up all over his coffee table, strewn about haphazardly, until Yosuke was convinced that the medical kit was the only worthwhile venture in the entire bag.

“I can't believe you kept all of those weird seeds,” Yosuke grumbled, determined to complain as though Yu's cuts were his own. “Those things are so useless, why bother holding onto them?”

“I don't kn-- hhh.”

Yu hissed a little, as Yosuke dabbed an antiseptic-soaked cotton ball to his injured fingers, in part because it stung against the open wounds, but more because both the antiseptic and Yosuke's fingers were like tiny, freezing cold brands where they touched Yu's skin. Worse though was the way the stuff smelled – not unbearable, but just enough like the sterile interior of a hospital to make him slightly uneasy.

“I don't know,” he repeated, ready for it that time when Yosuke came back for another round with the cotton ball. He glanced idly over Yosuke's head, bent in concentration, at the assortment of strange odds and ends from the TV world –- at the fireworks made of magic, the deceased shadow appendages, the unmarked vials that may or may not have been spoiled food. It wasn't like most of those were very practical either, ever since their adventures had ended, but who knew? Mostly Yu just hated wasting things. “I was going to stop by Shiroku tomorrow. Maybe I'll see if she'll give me anything for them.”

Yosuke fixed him with a dubious look, pausing in applying some antibiotic ointment to a square of gauze. But a few seconds passed by and neither of them said anything else, with Yosuke going back to tending Yu's cuts and Yu trying his best not to swallow away his pain. He couldn't help but wonder if they were both afraid to disturb their fragile peace.

Yosuke was the first to speak up again, with a small noise of consideration in the back of his throat. “Well. I don't think you need stitches or anything, but--”

He gestured for Yu to pull the towel away from his bare foot for a moment, frowned, and then pressed it back into place himself, more firmly this time.

“It's still bleeding. Anyway, we can just duck into the TV real fast tomorrow. It'll take five seconds for me to heal you up, that way.”

Nevermind the fact that Yu himself had several dozens of Personas he could've done the same with. He watched the concern etched in the set of Yosuke's eyes -- one side of his pretty face illuminated by wan moonlight, one by too-warm incandescence. Like earlier, and yet not like earlier at all, the words stayed where they were.

God, did he ever feel like shit.

“I'm sorry,” Yu began instead, willing his voice into submission. “About earlier. I don't know what I was--”

He broke off, because he did know, if he could only be honest with himself for five lousy seconds. He didn't want to say it, even now. But he knew.

Yosuke, none the wiser, either ignored Yu's reticence, or read it as simple nerves. He gave a small laugh, and said, “Yeah, well. I'm sorry I called you an asshole.”

“It's fine,” Yu replied, with a deliberate lightness. He lifted his head a little higher with a confidence he didn't believe right then, pretending that none of it bothered him nearly as much as it did. “I kind of deserved it.”

“A little bit, yeah,” Yosuke agreed, but he fixed Yu with a long look.

"So. Are you going to tell me what happened now, or what?"

"How do you know something happened?"

It was all but automatic. Yu didn't know why he said it, flat and impassive, after everything. 

"Seriously, dude?" Yosuke huffed, irate and almost shrill. And then sighing, lower, all but deflated, "Come on. Give me a little credit."

Yosuke wasn't the problem, Yu wanted to tell him. His words died in his throat for another reason yet.

Yosuke met Yu's eyes for a second, then flickered right back to their hands. Even with a downcast gaze he looked a bit hurt, again, and Yu felt awful for it, and -- well, Yosuke had been right, earlier. He couldn't seem to do anything without messing it up tonight. 

But Yosuke's words were so much softer when he spoke again, quiet and unusually gentle. "You did the whole... late night cleaning sprees and forgetting to eat thing a couple months back, too." He paused, and Yu watched his lips twitch, watched the shadow in the hollow of his throat bob slightly. "After-- you know. Everything with Nanako-chan."

Oh.

Well. Shit.

"I didn't--" Yu stopped, bit down on the inside of his lip, made himself breathe. "I never realized. That you noticed."

It made sense (too much sense) in hindsight. Yosuke (and Chie, and Yukiko, and everyone else, for that matter) had frequently stopped by with food, and taken meals (often long, leisurely meals) with him, when Nanako and Dojima-san-- when he was alone in the house. But up until right then, he'd just assumed they were just keeping him company. Helping him fill all the painful silence.

It was so stupid, he couldn't help but admonish himself, to think that he had actually managed to hide it from his friends. From his best friend. And the air in his chest felt so thick then, heavy with some inexplicable blend of shame and self-consciousness and gratitude.

"Yeah, well. I, uh. I noticed pretty fast, when I first got here tonight... but I didn't want to just. You know. Come out and say it, like that." Yosuke smiled without it meeting his eyes, briefly and without humor. "Plus you didn't seem like you were... in the mood to hear it then."

"Not really, no," Yu managed, after a moment.

"Yeah, so." Yosuke seemed to find his resolve then, looking Yu hard in the eyes. "How about it, then?"

He seemed to press at Yu's injured foot harder without even realizing it. Yu managed not to flinch, somehow, both at the jolt of pain and under Yosuke's unyielding gaze. His voice, though, was still a measure too far. He opened and closed his mouth, not knowing, this time, how to begin. Not knowing if he should even try.

“Look, if you really don't want to tell me-- I mean. I wish you would,” Yosuke faltered a little, rushing to fill up the empty space left by Yu's silence, and Yu could almost hear the unspoken _trust me_ that he'd managed to hold back. “It's cool though if you don't, or you can't, or whatever. But I-- I guess I just wanted you to know that I notice this stuff, okay? I'm not just... blind to it. When things aren't right with you.”

Yu felt the towel on his foot pull away again, as Yosuke busied himself with checking it. This time, he seemed satisfied that the blood had stopped, but he kept talking, his voice soft around the edges, affirming everything he'd just said in itself.

“And I want to be there, when it's like that for you. Like all the times you've been there for me.”

Yosuke paused to look up over applying the ointment and gauze, embarrassment clearly tugging a tight half-smile from one of the corners of his lips.

“Sorry, I'm-- I'm rambling. You know me.”

It was enough -- more than enough, really -- to make Yu reach out for him, like they had for each other so many times. He found Yosuke's face, bandaged fingers easily brushing over the moonlight smudged against his cheekbone, and _I want to be there_ echoing in his head.

“You always have been," Yu murmured, before closing the distance between their lips. Yosuke's mouth yielded easily against his own, and his shoulder held firm when Yu rested his face in the crook of Yosuke's neck. He felt Yosuke's free hand, the one not tacky with antibiotic ointment, come to rest in his own hair, stroking gently.

And somehow, it was perfect.

"I always will be." Yosuke's voice was both soft and steady, all at once, in his ear, and Yu could all but breathe in the truth of it. "If you'll let me."

Yu inhaled deeply through his nose, willing his own voice to do the same, and coming away with a head full of Yosuke's skin and residual laundry detergent, yet not much more confidence. And it struck him, with a sudden yet unshakable clarity, that this wasn't the first time he'd found himself with his head on Yosuke's shoulder not long after an argument.

He thought of any number of things he could've said then to make everything better. Maybe something like admitting that he was awful at letting people in. Or that he found himself almost desperately, in that moment, wanting to learn. Or that he was more than a little scared to start.

Or that he wanted to let Yosuke, so badly, simply be there.

Instead, before he could think of any more reasons not to, he said--

"My mom called me tonight."

It seemed to take Yosuke a moment to realize that it was an admission, of sorts, on Yu's part. Or maybe he was just trying to figure out what to say next.

"I take it that's not a good thing?" Yosuke said against the side of his face, more a statement than a question. And then, when Yu didn't say anything ( _couldn't bring_ himself to say anything), he went on, a little too quickly, "You've... never said much of anything before. About your parents."

"There's not much to say." It was automatic, albeit not exactly true. “It's not like I talk to them much.”

Yosuke pulled away, his warm gaze carefully searching Yu for answers.

"It's bothering you, though."

He didn't want to hesitate anymore, and yet there he was, frozen like a pinned butterfly beneath Yosuke's open concern.

"Yeah." It came out awkwardly, foreign and stiff to his own ears. But it was something, and it was a start. "It is."

It seemed to be enough for Yosuke, who went back to busying his hands with Yu's injured foot, reaching for more gauze to wrap around what was already in place, like it was easier, somehow. Yu felt another twinge of guilt at the reminder that all of this had to be hard -- maybe even harder -- for him too.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Yu shrugged, like it was nothing, like the very idea wasn't terrifying in its own right, brushing up against all manner of unspoken, unresolved truths that he'd been burying for too long to easily unearth. Like he didn't, so inexplicably but so badly, want to talk about it.

"I think--" and he didn't know why he said that, when he knew with utter certainty, "--it was the first time they've called me, since. You know. Everything happened."

Yu broke off there, but Yosuke immediately jerked away from his task to look up at him anyway, understanding in an instant.

"Shit," he all but breathed, and even just the way he said it told Yu everything about how he felt, right then. "I'm sorry, Yu. No wonder you were shaken up."

Yu looked away, almost instinctively, from Yosuke's knitted brows, at the open medicine kit, at the mess strewn over his table. It wasn't as comforting, but somehow it wasn't as difficult either.

"I guess it wasn't just having to tell them, though," he willed himself to say. He closed his eyes for a second, focusing silently on the motion of Yosuke's hands, where they worked to finish with his bandaging. "It was--"

What was it? The fact that they'd dumped him for a year in Inaba without much more than a train ticket and a suitcase? That they'd sent him to live with a man they hadn't seen since before Yu was old enough to remember, and a little girl they'd never met? That he couldn't remember the last time one of them had called?

Or the last time they seemed to care.

 _That sounds like a mess, Yu-kun,_ a clipped, static voice replayed in his head, in a pale imitation of sympathy. _I'm glad you could be there for them._

He hadn't noticed that he'd balled his hands into fists in his lap. Not until Yosuke covered one with his own, and suddenly the cuts on his fingers bit back at him again.

"Everything?" Yosuke guessed.

It was close enough. Yu nodded absently, staring at their hands, and this time it was Yosuke who pulled him close.

"Parents suck."

"Yeah." He agreed.

Yosuke made some faint huffing noise, close to his ear. It felt nice. "...Maybe yours in particular."

He pushed down some bitter, baffling urge to defend them, despite everything. Maybe this was normal. Maybe he didn't deserve this. Yosuke's embrace tightened a bit just then, as though he could read Yu's mind, and that was enough too.

"...Yeah."

Over Yosuke's shoulder, the world -- the moonlight, the lightbulb, Yosuke's shirt -- blurred, leaving little more than the sting of his cuts and a conspicuous sniffle.

"It's okay, Yu."

He could only nod again, barely perceptible against Yosuke's shoulder. But maybe, for once, it was.

**Author's Note:**

> The title's from [this song](https://genius.com/Nicole-dollanganger-sleepy-towns-and-cemeteries-lyrics), a personal favorite of mine for these two.


End file.
